The above identified and herein incorporated by reference U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/369,274 (filed Feb. 11, 2009) and Ser. No. 12/854,082 (filed Aug. 10, 2010) disclose certain types of Social-Topical Adaptive Networking (STAN) Systems (hereafter, also referred to respectively as “Sierra#1” or “STAN—1” and “Sierra#2” or “STAN—2”) which empower and enable physically isolated online users of a network to automatically join with one another (electronically or otherwise) so as to form a topic-specific and/or otherwise based information-exchanging group (e.g., a ‘TCONE’—as such is described in the STAN—2 application). A primary feature of the STAN systems is that they provide and maintain one or more so-called, topic space defining objects (e.g., topic-to-topic associating database records) which are represented by physical signals stored in machine memory and which topic space defining objects can define (and thus model) topic nodes and logical interconnections (cross-associations) between, and/or spatial clusterings of those nodes and/or can provide logical links to forums associated with topics modeled by the respective nodes and/or to persons or other social entities associated with topics of the nodes and/or to on-topic other material associated with topics of the nodes. The topic space defining objects (e.g., database records, also referred to herein as potentially-attention-receiving modeled points, nodes or subregions of a Cognitive Attention Receiving Space (CARS), which space in this case is topic space) can be used by the STAN systems to automatically provide, for example, invitations to plural persons or to other social entities to join in on-topic online chats or other Notes Exchange sessions (forum sessions) when those social entities are deemed to be currently focusing-upon (e.g., casting their respective attention giving energies on) such topics or clusters of such topics and/or when those social entities are deemed to be co-compatible for interacting at least online with one another. (In one embodiment, co-compatibilities are established by automatically verifying reputations and/or attributes of persons seeking to enter a STAN-sponsored chat room or other such Notes Exchange session, e.g., a Topic Center “Owned” Notes Exchange session or “TCONE”.) Additionally, the topic space defining objects (e.g., database records) are used by the STAN systems to automatically provide suggestions to users regarding on-topic other content and/or regarding further social entities whom they may wish to connect with for topic-related activities and/or socially co-compatible activities.
During operation of the STAN systems, a variety of different kinds of informational signals may be collected by a STAN system in regard to the current states of its users; including but not limited to, the user's geographic location, the user's transactional disposition (e.g., at work? at a party? at home? etc.); the user's recent online activities; the user's recent biometric states; the user's habitual trends, behavioral routines, the user's biological states (e.g., hungry tired, muscles fatigued from workout) and so on. The purpose of this collected information is to facilitate automated joinder of like-minded and co-compatible persons for their mutual benefit. More specifically, a STAN-system-facilitated joinder may occur between users at times when they are in the mood to do so (to join in a so-called Notes Exchange session) and when they have roughly concurrent focus on same or similar detectable content and/or when they apparently have approximately concurrent interest in a same or similar particular topic or topics and/or when they have current personality co-compatibility for instantly chatting with, or for otherwise exchanging information with one another or otherwise transacting with one another.
In terms of a more concrete example of the above concepts, the imaginative and hypothetical introduction that was provided above revolved around a group of hypothetical people who all seemed to be currently thinking about a same popular event (the day's Superbowl™ football game) and many of whom seemed to be concurrently interested in then obtaining event-relevant refreshments (e.g., pizza) and/or other event-relevant paraphernalia (e.g., T-shirts). The group-based discount offer sought to join them, along with others, in an online manner for a mutually beneficial commercial transaction (e.g., volume purchase and localized delivery of a discounted item that is normally sold in smaller quantities to individual and geographically dispersed customers one at a time). The unsolicited and thus “pushed” solicitation was not one that generally annoyed the recipients as would conventionally pushed unsolicited and undesired advertisements. It's almost as if the users pulled the solicitation in to them by means of their subconscious will power rather than having the solicitations rudely pushed onto them by an insistent high pressure salesperson. The underlying mechanisms that can automatically achieve this will be detailed below. At this introductory phase of the present disclosure it is worthwhile merely to note that some wants and desires can arise at the subconscious level and these can be inferred to a reasonable degree of confidence by carefully reading a person's facial expressions (e.g., micro-expressions) and/or other body gestures, by monitoring the persons' computer usage activities, by tracking the person's recent habitual or routine activities, and so on, without giving away that such is going on and without inappropriately intruding on reasonable expectations of privacy by the person. Proper reading of each individual's body-language expressions may require access to a Personal Emotion Expression Profile (PEEP) that has been pre-developed for that individual and for certain contexts in which the person may find themselves. Example structures for such PEEP records are disclosed in at least one of the here incorporated U.S. Ser. No. 12/369,274 and Ser. No. 12/854,082. Appropriate PEEP records for each individual may be activated based on automated determination of time, place and other context revealing hints or clues (e.g., the individual's digitized calendar or recent email records which show a plan, for example, to attend a certain friend's “Superbowl™ Sunday Party” at a pre-arranged time and place, for example 1:00 PM at Ken's house). Of course, user permission for accessing and using such information should be obtained by the system beforehand, and the users should be able to rescind the permissions whenever they want to do so, whether manually or by automated command (e.g., IF Location=Charlie's Tavern THEN Disable All STAN monitoring”). In one embodiment, user permission automatically fades over time for all or for one or more prespecified regions of topic space and needs to be reestablished by contacting the user and either obtaining affirmative consent or permission from the user or at least notifying the user and reminding the user of the option to rescind. In one embodiment, certain prespecified regions of topic space are tagged by system operators and/or the respective users as being of a sensitive nature and special double permissions are required before information regarding user direct or indirect ‘touchings’ into these sensitive regions of topic space is automatically shared with one or more prespecified other social entities (e.g., most trusted friends and family).
Before delving deeper into such aspects, a rough explanation of the term “STAN system” as used herein is provided. The term arises from the nature of the respective network systems, namely, STAN—1 as disclosed in here-incorporated U.S. Ser. No. 12/369,274 and STAN—2 as disclosed in here-incorporated U.S. Ser. No. 12/854,082. Generically they are referred to herein as Social-Topical ‘Adaptive’ Networking (STAN) systems or STAN systems for short. One of the things that such STAN systems can generally do is to maintain in machine memory one or more virtual spaces (data-objects organizing spaces) populated by interrelated data objects stored therein such as interrelated topic nodes (or ‘topic centers’ as they are referred to in the Ser. No. 12/854,082 application) where the nodes may be hierarchically interconnected (via logical graphing) to one another and/or logically linked to topic-related forums (e.g., online chat rooms) and/or to topic-related other content. Such system-maintained and logically interconnected and continuously updated representations of topic nodes and associated forums (e.g., online chat rooms) may be viewed as social and dynamically changing communal cognition spaces. (The definition of such communal cognition spaces is expanded on herein as will be seen below.) In accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, if there are not enough online users tethered to one topic node so as to adequately fill a social mix recipe of a given chat or other forum participation session, users from hierarchically and/or spatially nearby other topic nodes those of substantially similar topic may be automatically recruited to fill the void. In other words, one chat room can simultaneously service plural ones of topic nodes. (The concept of social mix recipe will be explained later below.) The STAN—1 and STAN—2 systems (as well as the STAN—3 of the present disclosure) can cross match current users with respective topic nodes that are determined by machine means as representing topics likely to be currently focused-upon ones in the respective users' minds. The STAN systems can also cross match current users with other current users (e.g., co-compatible other users) so as to create logical linkages between users where the created linkages are at least one if not both of being topically relevant and socially acceptable for such users of the STAN system. Incidentally, hierarchical graphing of topic-to-topic associations (T2T) is not a necessary or only way that STAN systems can graph T2T associations via a physical database or otherwise. Topic-to-topic associations (T2T) may alternatively or additionally be defined by non-hierarchical graphs (ones that do not have clear parent to child relationships as between nodes) and/or by spatial and distance based positionings within a specified virtual positioning space.
The “adaptive” aspect of the “STAN” acronym correlates in one sense to the “plasticity” (neuroplasticity) of the individual human mind and correlates in a second sense to a similar “plasticity” of the collective or societal mind. Because both individualized people and groups thereof; and their respective areas of focused attention tend to change with time, location, new events and variation of physical and/or social context (as examples), the STAN systems are structured to adaptively change (e.g., update) their definitions regarding what parts of a system-maintained, Cognitive Attention Receiving Space (referred to herein also as a “CARS”) are currently cross-associated with what other parts of the same CARS and/or with what specific parts of other CARS. The adaptive changes can also modify what the different parts currently represent (e.g., what is the current definition of a topic of a respective topic node when the CARS is defined as being the topic space). The adaptive changes can also vary the assigned intensity of attention giving energies for respective users when the users are determined by the machine means to be focused-upon specific subareas within, for example, a topics-defining map (e.g., hierarchical and/or spatial). The adaptive changes can also determine how and/or at what rate the cross-associated parts (e.g., topic nodes) and their respective interlinkings and their respective definitions change with changing times and changing external conditions. In other words, the STAN systems are structured to adaptively change the topics-defining maps themselves (a.k.a. topic spaces, which topic maps/spaces have corresponding, physically represented, topic nodes or the like defined by data signals recorded in databases or other appropriate memory means of the STAN_system and which topic nodes or groups thereof can be pointed to with logical pointer mechanisms). Such adaptive change of perspective regarding virtual positions or graphed interlinks in topic space and/or reworking of the topic space and of topic space content (and/or of alike subregions of other Cognitive Attention Receiving Spaces) helps the STAN systems to keep in tune with variable external conditions and with their variable user populations as the latter migrate to new topics (e.g., fad of the day) and/or to new personal dispositions (e.g., higher levels of expertise, different moods, etc.).
One of the adaptive mechanisms that can be relied upon by the STAN system is the generation and collection of implicit vote or CVi signals (where CVi may stand for Current (and implied or explicit) Vote-Indicating record). CVi's are vote-representing signals which are typically automatically collected from user surrounding machines and used to infer subconscious positive or negative votes cast by users as they go about their normal machine usage activities or normal life activities, where those activities are open to being monitored (due to rescindable permissions given by the user for such monitoring) by surrounding information gathering equipment. User PEEP files may be used in combination with collected CFi and CVi signals to automatically determine most probable, user-implied votes regarding focused-upon material even if those votes are only at the subconscious level. Stated otherwise, users can implicitly urge the STAN system topic space and pointers thereto to change (or pointers/links within the topic space to change) in response to subconscious votes that the users cast where the subconscious votes are inferred from telemetry gathered about user facial grimaces, body language, vocal grunts, breathing patterns, eye movements, and the like. (Note: The above notion of a current cross-association between different parts of a same CARS (e.g., topic space or some other Cognitive Attention Receiving Space) is also referred to herein as an IntrA-Space cross-associating link or “InS-CAX” for short. The above notion of a current cross-association between points, nodes or subregions of different CARS's is also referred to herein as an IntEr-Space cross-associating link or “IoS-CAX” for short, where the “o” in the “IoS-CAX” acronym signifies that the link crosses to outside of the respective space. See for example, IoS-CAX 370.6 of FIG. 3E and IoS-CAX 390.6 of the same figure where these will be further described later below.)
Although not specifically given as an example in the earlier filed and here incorporated U.S. Ser. No. 12/854,082 (STAN—2), one example of a changing and “neuro-plastic” cognition landscape might revolve around a keyword such as “surfing”. In the decade of the 1960's, the word “surfing” may most likely have conjured up in the minds of most individuals and groups, the notion of waves breaking on a Hawaiian or Californian beach and young men taking to the waves with their “surf boards” so they can ride or “surf” those waves. By contrast, after the decade of the 1990's, the word “surfing” may more likely have conjured up in the minds of most up-to-date individuals (and groups of the same), the notion of people using personal computers and using the Internet and searching through it (surfing the net) to find websites of interest. Moreover, in the decade of the 1960's there was essentially no popular attention giving activities directed to the notion of “surfing” meaning the idea of journeying through webs of data by means of personally controlled computers. By contrast, beginning with the decade of the 1990's (and the explosive growth of the World Wide Web), it became exponentially more and more popular to focus one's attention giving energies on the notion of “surfing” as it applies to riding through the growing mounds of information found on the World Wide Web or elsewhere within the Internet and/or within other network systems. Indeed, another word that changed in meaning in a plastic cognition way is the word sounded out as “Google”. In the decade of the 1960's such a sounded out word (more correctly spelled as “Googol”) was understood to mean the number 10 raised to the 100th power. Thinking about sorting through a Googol-ful of computerized data meant looking for a needle in a haystack. The likelihood of finding the sought item was close to nil. Ironically, with the advent of the internet searching engine known as Google™, the probability of finding a website whose content matches with user-picked keywords increased dramatically and the popularly assumed meaning for the corresponding sound bite (“Googol” or “Google”) changed, and the topics cross-correlated to that sound bite also changed; quite significantly.
The sounded-out words, “surfing and “Google” are but two of many examples of the “plasticity” attribute of the individual human mind and of the “plasticity” attribute of the collective or societal mind. Change has and continues to come to many other words, and to their most likely meanings and to their most likely associations to other words (and/or other cognitions). The changes can come not only due to passage of time, be it over a period of years; or sometimes over a matter of days or hours, but also due to unanticipated events (e.g., the term “911”—pronounced as nine eleven—took on sudden and new meaning on Sep. 11, 2001). Other examples of words or phrases that have plastically changed over time include, being “online”, opening a “window”, being infected by a “virus”, looking at your “cellular”, going “phishing”, worrying about “climate change”, “occupying” a street such as one named Wall St., and so on. Indeed, not only do meanings and connotations of same-sounding words change over time, but new words and new ideas associated with them are constantly being added. The notion of having an adaptive and user-changeable topic space was included even in the here-incorporated STAN—1 disclosure (U.S. Ser. No. 12/369,274).
In addition to disclosing an adaptively changing topics space/map (topic-to-topic (T2T) associations space), the here also-incorporated U.S. Ser. No. 12/854,082 (STAN—2) discloses the notion of a user-to-user (U2U) associations space as well as a user-to-topic (U2T) cross associations space. Here, an extension of the user-to-user (U2U) associations space will be disclosed where that extension will be referred to as Social/Persona Entities Interrelation Spaces (SPEIS'es for short). A single such space is a SPEIS. However, there often are many such spaces due to the typical presence of multiple social networking (SN) platforms like FaceBook™, LinkedIn™, MySpace™, Quora™, etc. and the many different kinds of user-to-user associations which can be formed by activities carried out on these various platforms in addition to user activities carried out on a STAN platform. The concept of different “personas” for each one real world person was explained in the here incorporated U.S. Ser. No. 12/854,082 (STAN—2). In this disclosure however, Social/Persona Entities (SPE's) may include not only the one or different personas of a real world, single flesh and blood person, but also personas of hybrid real/virtual persons (e.g., a Second Life™ avatar driven by a committee of real persons) and personas of collectives such as a group of real persons and/or a group of hybrid real/virtual persons and/or purely virtual persons (e.g., those driven entirely by an executing computer program). In one embodiment, each STAN user can define his or her own custom groups or the user can use system-provided templates (e.g., My Immediate Family). The Group social entity may be used to keep a collective tab on what a relevant group of social entities are doing (e.g., What topic or other thing are they collectively and recently focusing-upon?).
When it comes to automated formation of social groups, one of the extensions or improvements disclosed herein involves formation of a group of online real persons who are to be considered for receiving a group discount offer (e.g., reduced price pizza) or another such transaction/promotional offering. More specifically, the present disclosure provides for a machine-implemented method that can use the automatically gathered CFi and/or CVi signals (current focus indicator and current voting indicator signals respectively) of a STAN system advantageously to automatically infer therefrom what unsolicited solicitations (e.g., group offers and the like) would likely be welcome at a given moment by a targeted group of potential offerees (real or even possibly virtual if the offer is to their virtual life counterparts, e.g., their SecondLife™ avatars) and which solicitations would less likely be welcomed and thus should not be now pushed onto the targeted personas, because of the danger of creating ill-will or degrading previously developed goodwill. Another feature of the present disclosure is to automatically sort potential offerees according to likelihood of welcoming and accepting different ones of possible solicitations and pushing the M most likely-to-be-now-welcomed solicitations to a corresponding top N ones of the potential offerees who are currently likely to accept (where here M and N are corresponding predetermined numbers). Outcomes can change according to changing moods/ideas of socially-interactive user populations as well as those of individual users (e.g., user mood or other current user persona state). A potential offeree who is automatically determined to be less likely to welcome a first of simultaneously brewing group offers may nonetheless be determined to more likely to now welcome a second of the brewing group offers. Thus brewing offers are competitively and automatically sorted by machine means so that each is transmitted (pushed) to a respective offerees population that is populated by persons deemed most likely to then accept that offer and offerees are not inundated with too many or unwelcomed offers. More details follow below.
Another novel use disclosed herein of the Group entity is that of tracking group migrations and migration trends through topic space and/or through other cognition cross-associating spaces (e.g., keyword space, context space, etc.). If a predefined group of influential personas (e.g., Tipping Point Persons) is automatically tracked as having traveled along a sequence of paths or a time parallel set of paths through topic space (by virtue of making direct or indirect ‘touchings’ in topic space), then predictions can be automatically made about the paths that their followers (e.g., twitter fans) will soon follow and/or of what the influential group will next likely do as a group. This can be useful for formulating promotional offerings to the influential group and/or their followers. Also, the leaders may be solicited by vendors for endorsing vendor provided goods and/or services. Detection of sequential paths and/or time parallel paths through topic space is not limited to predefined influential groups. It can also apply to individual STAN users. The tracking need not look at (or only at) the topic nodes they directly or indirectly ‘touched’ in topic space. It can include a tracking of the sequential and/or time parallel patterns of CFi's and/or CVi's (e.g., keywords, meta-tags, hybrid combinations of different kinds of CFi's (e.g., keywords and context-reporting CFi's), etc.) produced by the tracked individual STAN users. Such trackings can be useful for automatically formulating promotional offerings to the corresponding individuals. In one embodiment, so-called, hybrid spaces are created and represented by data stored in machine memory where the hybrid spaces can include but are not limited to, a hybrid topic-and-context space, a hybrid keyword-and-context space, a hybrid URL-and-context space, whereby system users whose recently collected CFi's indicate a combination of current context and current other focused-upon attribute (e.g., keyword) can be identified and serviced according to their current dispositions in the respective hybrid spaces and/or according to their current trajectories of journeying through the respective hybrid spaces.
It is to be understood that this background and further introduction section is intended to provide useful background for understanding the here disclosed inventive technology and as such, this technology background section may and probably does include ideas, concepts or recognitions that were not part of what was known or appreciated by others skilled in the pertinent arts prior to corresponding invention dates of invented subject matter disclosed herein. As such, this background of technology section is not to be construed as any admission whatsoever regarding what is or is not prior art. A clearer picture of the inventive technology will unfold below.